BND boss warns of Russia’s attempts to influence the federal election

The President of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), Bruno Kahl, expects Russia to attempt to influence the early federal elections in February. The election process itself can hardly be influenced, said the head of the German foreign intelligence service at an event organized by the German Society for Foreign Policy in Berlin. But we have already seen Russia’s participation in the political opinion-forming process in the elections so far this year.

In the Kremlin, issues in Germany such as Corona or climate are being closely analyzed and social conflicts are being stirred up about them, said Kahl. On the right and left edges of the political spectrum, what is given is then “naively parroted”. “Of course this has an impact on the elections, on the election results.”

Kahl warned of increasing hybrid attacks by Russia on Germany and the Western defense alliance NATO. Moscow’s willingness to further escalate in this area has reached a previously unknown, high level. A further deterioration of the situation is likely. This increases the risk that the question of a NATO alliance case will arise. As Russia’s military potential grows, “a direct military confrontation with NATO will become a possible option for the Kremlin.” Russia’s armed forces would probably have the personnel and material capacity to carry out an attack against NATO by the end of the decade.

According to the BND experts’ assessment, high-ranking officials in the Russian Defense Ministry apparently had doubts as to whether the NATO assistance obligations and the USA’s extended deterrence for Europe would hold up in an emergency, explained Kahl. “There are currently no indications of Russia’s concrete intentions to go to war. But if such views prevail in Moscow’s government headquarters, the risk of a military conflict will increase in the coming years.” The focus would then be “certainly not on a large-scale land grab”. Rather, according to the BND’s assessment, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian leadership were aiming for NATO to fail as a defense alliance.

Before a military conflict with NATO, the Kremlin will probably first threaten Europe – “the nuclear whispers that we hear from time to time are also part of that,” said Kahl. Russia wants to test its willingness to provide assistance before an offensive conflict and to dissuade individual allies from common political lines and from defending themselves. The BND chief warned that Moscow would thus attempt to divide NATO before a possible war could begin. “The Kremlin probably assumes that the West is having difficulty finding the right common answers in a world characterized by multiple conflicts,” he added.